Stuck by Ben Young

Author:Ben Young [Young, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-09-22T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty-Two

They moved forward, Robbie pushing John along the cave floor as if he were a garden implement tilling the soil of his own grave, until they reached a wall. John didn’t understand how Robbie saw anything, his flashlight held in his left hand, that arm clasped around John’s neck so the light shone only behind them like a pipe streaming a cloud of exhaust in photonegative. Still, Robbie knew where he was steering.

John’s protesting feet met the base of the wall, rounded into a non-angle from the floor. When he could push no further, Robbie twisted his hand to cast the light in front of them and John saw a small opening in the rock’s surface. It was too dark, the light not holding still as he continued to thrash, and on closer look John noticed how tight that opening was. It was no more than a crack, a narrow crawlspace that started at the floor and rose up the cave wall in an inverted V, barely wide enough at its base for a human body to squeeze into. He knew something real about Robbie’s intentions then.

John grunted in protest, a long and deep sound, formed more in his chest than his vocal chords. Robbie loosened the arm around his throat, enough for John to cough and grasp at the stagnant underground air.

“N-no,” John said, sputtering the word as if his lungs were backfiring.

“Afraid so, buddy. We got to get you in there,” Robbie said. “I’m sorry, I really am. But it’s the only way. You have to feel what’s happening out there. Embrace it and move forward.”

John’s mind wavered back to his terrible visions, all played back at the same time like the greatest hits of the past week. Dark thoughts whipped through him like a flock of bats, their wings leaving trails of sliver-like scalpel cuts. Robbie pulling the strings that brought his life crashing down. His brother, dying trapped and alone in a dark womb of rock. Mags, trapped too. Like him, in danger. But where? Somewhere dark.

The thought of her, trapped and alone and threatened as he was, brought John to action. His own safety was no longer pressing. He had to find Mags.

A surge came then, as if adrenalin had been injected straight into his chest. He placed both feet firmly on the wall, hoping to either catch Robbie off guard or force him to drop the arm around John’s neck.

The arm stayed, locked tighter than its original position, cutting off his air. John’s feet on the wall, one a few inches up, the other higher. He pushed with the full strength of both thighs as if he were jumping. He and Robbie went backward, landing hard and sprawling out, back-to-front, John on top.

The flashlight skittered away but remained on, coming to rest a few feet away, facing them and casting their shadows against the wall with the narrow crack where Robbie had tried to force him. Light sprinkled around them like chunks of yellow gore.

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